“We are considered the trash of Brazil, but this place accepts us,” said Darci Altair Santos da Silva, 43, a construction worker serving a 13-year sentence for sexual abuse of a child under 14. “I know what I did was very cruel. The tea helped me reflect on this fact, on the possibility that one day I can find redemption.”

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“They should be able to make a profit” – ESC member, in conversation with the author

Right there is a starting assumption that is fundamentally at odds with indigenous culture. Amazonian indigenous societies in my experience — and certainly all Andean indigenous societies — are fundamentally based upon reciprocity. Not profit. Profit and reciprocity are fundamentally different values.

Reciprocity is based on the principle of balance — ideally an equal balance between giver and receiver, between income and outgo. Profit is based on imbalance — on the idea that I should receive more than I put in.

That is why profit demands continuous expansion. If all of us put $10 into an enterprise and all of us expect to receive $11 back, in order to accomplish that we must bring in income from outside our circle. An economy of reciprocity, on the other hand, can be self-contained and economically independent, with no need for outside input, or even necessarily for money. An economy of reciprocity promotes community bonds and a sense of mutual dependence and mutual responsibility. Its aim is to make it possible for everyone to make a living, and to create security and stability for its members. An economy of reciprocity promotes a stable and sustainable relationship with the natural world, because the ethic of reciprocity and balance extends to the relationship with the natural world. An economy of reciprocity is sustainable and can continue in a state of balance indefinitely.

(Another type of economy, that of my own culture, is the gift economy, which also ensures that everyone’s needs are taken care of and which, like an economy of reciprocity, is also balanced and sustainable indefinitely.)

An economy of profit-making, on the other hand, is unstable, insecure, competitive, unbalanced, and creates winners and losers. Profit is open-ended. There is never enough.

When you are interested simply in making a living for your family, there is a point in which you can have enough. Survival needs are taken care of, and you can go off and enjoy life with your family. You can even have a little more than enough, to enrich your life with greater enjoyment. But if your goal is profit, there is never enough. And the greater the profit, the greater the imbalance.

In the case of the Amazon, bringing in the profit economy also contributes to increasing brujeria (sorcery). Envy is the main source of brujeria (the other source is revenge). Creating imbalances of wealth and power in a society where people have lived as equals for millennia is to throw gasoline on the smoldering fires of envy and brujeria, and on the feuds that develop over suspicion of brujeria.

(I have always been baffled by how, in this society, people are supposed to want to be envied. Envy is a form of hostility, why would you want hostility directed toward you? “Your friends will hate you” — why on earth would anyone want that???)

And an economy based on profit requires perpetual expansion, so it requires an influx of money from the outside. Profit by definition makes the Ayahuasca economy dependent on the outside economy. It firmly hooks the Ayahuasca world into global capitalism and helps those who are hooked into it dominate the Ayahuasca world.

Global capitalism is already destroying the Amazon. Oil companies and other multinationals are destroying the forests and poisoning the rivers. And the more that people lose their independence and become dependent on money and the global capitalist system in order to survive, the less they can resist the forces of destruction. Global capitalism is intrinsically unsustainable because it requires perpetual expansion (growth) in order to survive. It is founded upon imbalance, not on balance.

The ESC member did not say “They should be able to make a living.” He said “They should be able to make a profit.” As though the virtue of promoting profit economy in the Amazon is not even something to question. As though there is no difference between making a living and making a profit.

The ESC model is designed (whether intentionally or unconsciously) to accelerate the takeover of the Amazonian Ayahuasca world by Western-based capitalist model. It does not require conscious intent — all it requires is for gringo values and assumptions to be simply taken for granted without question. This is only one example of how dangerous and harmful and disrespectful to a traditional society that gringo cultural assumptions can be, even when the intention is to try to do good.

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]]>http://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/profit-vs-reciprocity/feed/0The ESC and the Amazon: different thoughts are different worldshttp://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/the-esc-and-the-amazon-different-thoughts-are-different-worlds/
http://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/the-esc-and-the-amazon-different-thoughts-are-different-worlds/#commentsSat, 31 Jan 2015 02:43:35 +0000adminhttp://www.ayahuasca.com/?p=1620The ESC and the Amazon: different thoughts are different worlds

by Carlos Suárez Alvarez

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To me it is very clear that the first objective of the ESC is power. And they don’t know very well where they are stepping. But I could say that of most of the organizations, regional, national or international, that work in the Amazon.

The key question on these intercultural relationships is that they are always unbalanced, and no matter how good the intentions are, most times they benefit the Western part, directly or indirectly. I don’t think help is possible coming from the West; or let’s put it in other words: help doesn’t help. Let me explain why I think so.

There are really good intentioned people coming here to do all kind of projects (development, conservation, etc…). Most of these projects generally tend to insert indigenous people in the market economy (and its consequences) in many different ways; some of those projects are really well designed and you can see the good will of the people that bring them and the respect they have for indigenous peoples.

In most cases there is first a big problem of comprehension, not easy to solve. It is no just that both parts speak a different language or dialect, but that they also have a different thought. “To have a different thought”. Anyone can read that and understand the meaning, even imagine it, however is much more difficult to get to the point where you don’t just intellectually understand it but you also experiment it and really get to know that different thought, to hold it even for a minute. I guess many anthropologists (and not only anthropologists, of course, it is a human possibility) have had that experience. But I also have seen many professionals that have worked with indigenous people for years and still don’t understand them at all.

Two different thoughts are two different worlds; and the Amazon world-thought and the Western world-thought, simply don’t match. To me (and to many others before me: Overing, Sahlins, Gasché) the most important difference is that Amazon people is highly autonomous and individualistic. There are (was) no hierarchies and there is (was) no specialized production, and no money, and there is (was) no accumulation (not only accumulation of material things but also of power). A man and a woman, united, could potentially live by themselves (although rarely did), thanks to the abundance of the forest and the ancestral knowledge.

That Amazon world-thought meets now with the Western world-thought of hierarchies and compromises towards bosses or coordinators or whatever, a highly specialized productive system, a schedule not related to nature, with money and accumulation as conditions, where there is no way that a man and a woman can be autonomous, and are subjected legitimately to the power of others.

This leap has many consequences in the relationships established in the context of development projects brought here not only by gringos, but also by Colombians and Peruvians and Brazilians raised in cities: professionals, college graduated… Urban mentalities.

In the Amazon, development projects (those that intend to accommodate indigenous people in the globalization) fail once and again and again until the infinite… It would be too long to explain how this different mentality affects practically, but it does in many ways. Of course, if you take a look at the web pages of the project promoters, they are always successful (they better if they want more funds to keep going). And yes, those projects are always a success, however not for the indigenous people but for the professionals and institutions that implement them (and many of those are also indigenous, that’s part of the success). It is not simply a question of persons getting money (though I am very sure the ESC won’t be sad about having 58,000 dollars to “help”), it is a question of one system accumulating and administering power in its many forms, and inside that system, the competitions established among institutions and professionals to get hold of a bit of that power (and therefore to exist). The first objective of any organization is existing. Existing is accumulating power.

The options we are debating here are:

1) the ESC, that has no understanding whatsoever of the Amazon culture and ayahuasca shamanism;

2) any other NGO, or any other project, with more knowledge and more careful and caring, that will do a better job. But the indigenous organizations that I know are usually the result of Western influences and ideals, and many times are financed by western NGOs or governments, and they usually have presidents an else… And they replicate certain patterns of power accumulation, etc… Anyway, maybe that’s a little bit radical.

However, both 1 and 2 pursue or reach the same result: getting the Amazon world-thought into the Western world-thought. Note that there is no exchange, that none of our institutions become more indigenous. That means that hierarchies take over freedom, and specialized (and destructive) production over autonomous exploitation of the forest, accumulation over subsistence (sorry about the word subsistence, it sounds like if they were under something, but no: it is (was) perpetual abundance), and so on. The question is that both options 1 and 2 tend to finish a very valuable way of life, an example of society that actually could HELP US, and not the other way around. Let’s take a look at our world: did we do it so well that we can help others?

My fatalist and pessimistic opinion is that nothing can be done inside the hierarchic specialized structures of power-production to help the Amazon people, that won’t change their world-thought into ours, because as powerful king Midas, everything we touch we become it into… whatever you prefer. By the way, that doesn’t mean that I don’t do anything to improve the lives of the people that surround me (my little society).

We could give a proposal of how things can be done. However in my case this would be paradoxical, because I believe that no matter what I do or say in the context of this structure of power we belong to, I will reinforce those very same structures that I consider the cause of the problem, especially if I do some criticism that could lead to a change that will make the structures (just to use one of its many names) better adapted to a new challenge, a new situation, reaching that way a more legitimate position before the public eye. The essential (hierarchies, specialized production, accumulation) won’t change unless everyone of us decides to go to the country and grow tomatoes and breed chickens, and whenever you see your neighbors trying to accumulate something, steal them, defame them, or pay a brujo (with chicken, of course) to send them a virote.

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Born in Spain, Carlos Suárez Alvarez now lives in Colombia. He has a master’s degree in Amazonian Studies from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, for which his thesis was an ethnography about Shipibo youth and cultural change. He has written a novel Ayahuasca, amor y mezquindad (Ediciones Amargord) and regularly publishes ethnographic chronicles in different magazines, paying special attention to ayahuasca but also to the irruption of development politics in the Amazon and its consequences to indigenous cultures.

]]>http://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/the-esc-and-the-amazon-different-thoughts-are-different-worlds/feed/0Colonialism, Capitalism and Ayahuasca: When Things Go Rotten in the Heat of the Junglehttp://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/colonialism-capitalism-and-ayahuasca/
http://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/colonialism-capitalism-and-ayahuasca/#commentsFri, 23 Jan 2015 17:28:24 +0000Morgan Maherhttp://www.ayahuasca.com/?p=1599Colonialism, Capitalism and Ayahuasca: When Things Go Rotten in the Heat of the Jungle

by Morgan Maher

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“If anything can taint and damage the ayahuasca community, it is the alarmist, out-of-touch-with-reality activities of ESC. There is no small misunderstanding here. ESC is very much like a rotten piece of fruit. Running a bit of water on it will not make it palatable.” — Chris Kilham

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Once again is illuminated one of the most rotten characteristics of our species — the Colonial, Paternalistic, Missionary zeal that plagues human history and permeates our modern moment.

This sickness has tricked so many into submission, frightened, deceived and dominated so vastly, that we, as a species, as a life-force on this planet, have long accepted it, rallied against it, been squashed by it, or simply beat our heads against the very brick walls closing in on us.

However, due to the personal and planetary revelations, revolutions and resolutions we’re all experiencing, we’re so ripe and ready to grow above and beyond such useless junk, banish it all to the Great Cosmic Compost and make the loving leap to ways of life that celebrate unity, health and consciousness.

Many of us are making that leap, in small steps or big strides, with the help of Ayahuasca, one of the most powerful medicines on Earth.

And so when this medicine — this plant, this drink, this tradition, this way of life we know — is threatened in some way big or small, expect the millions of lives this plant has touched, saved, improved, expanded, and connected — to light up.

Of course, these days, people are busy being busy, or productive, or making ends meet or escaping it all, or deep in a personal healing journey or just enthralled by any of the myriad distractions dealt these days, and so it’s a fact of modern life that things fly by at great speed, and often fly around cloaked and soaked in illusion. Often without even knowing it, we drink the new-look-same-great-taste kool-aid, and need to get our collective stomach pumped.

In some ways we as modern folks risk being surface dwellers — skimming headlines, biting on buzzwords and basically hoping for the best.

I’ll raise my hand as guilty of surface dwelling now and then — which was certainly the case regarding my general view and “media consumption” of the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council. Sure I saw words like “sustainable” and “ayahuasca” stream out on Twitter and Facebook, “sounds good” — or so I thought.

And in the same breath & flash I saw yet another ayahuasca related crowdfunding campaign, another ayahuasca retreat pop up, another ayahuasca special report, another magazine article, another celebrity drank ayahuasca, another book release, another debate rage, another encounter with a stranger on the street who “discovered” ayahuasca (and now apparently fully versed in its ways), and so on and so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Purge and let’s get real.

Lately it seems as though at least once a year the Ayahuasca community is presented with a major controversy, now showing in the form of the Statement Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council – the chaos and confusion of the ESC seems to be taking the cake for 2015, even while it’s been a festering mess for some time.

Events, I remind, that proceeded in the face of many, many explicit warnings and observations that things were not right, that there were highly questionable ethics involved, and that there was real potential for tragedy and disaster.

Sadly the warnings that came from experienced, well respected people in the ayahuasca community we’re ignored, and the situation at Chimbre escalated a young man’s life was lost, and families disrupted and torn apart in the worst of ways.

And while it may seem that the ESC aims to help avoid such tragedy, in it’s “Messianic delusion” and quest for safety and regulation of ayahuasca, it is in fact built upon the same top-down, dominator-culture style “governance”, colonialism and deception that has got us in this planetary mess in the first place, and plays out on micro and macro levels time and time again.

The Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council, like the now long gone Chimbre retreat, is a charming wolf in flashy marketing, a well disguised version of the Missionary/Gringo/White Guy/Westerner who one way or another gets a big idea and wants to save the poor indians, save the people, save the tourists, save the world, help you save yourself, so help me god!

An old approach filled with good intentions, yet is so incredibly dangerous. Especially as relates to ayahuasca, because while fair-trade “sustainable ayahuasca” might sound sexy, ayahuasca is not coffee beans or bamboo t-shirts. It is a traditional medicine and a way of life, despite the hype, drama and headlines of tourists, celebrities and TV shows.

And of course, who doesn’t want to align with and promote safety?

But safety is not the same as respect, especially when talking about Ayahuasca and especially when in a place like the Amazon. I mean it’s a jungle, a wild living forest with wild living people in it — it is not some kind of make-believe playground for American/Western ethnocentrism to fly in with a giant stamp of approval.

In all this I am clearly reminded of an article by Peter Gorman entitled “Do Gooders in the Amazon” in which Gorman describes the ways “do-gooders have done more harm in the Third World than all the bad men combined”. Picture well-meaning folks who know nothing, or next to nothing, about a culture or way of life and impose directions like some kind of drunk-on-power back seat driver in a town they’ve never been to.

And if Colonialism wasn’t bad enough, add Capitalism to this strange brew and things get really sad, really fast, as noted in the Statement of Criticism:

The ESC’s aesthetics and vocabulary derive from a neoliberal market-basedframework, employing such terms and concepts as “incentives,” “cost-effective,” “competitiveness,” “willingness to pay,” “value chain,” “stakeholder,” etc.

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Power playing Messianic do-gooders with lots of money and lots of time tend to become stricken with tunnel vision, plugged-up ears, and a nasty case of aggressive certainty. This is what is showing up with the ESC and its Co-founder and Executive Director Joshua Wickerham. Zoom out for a good look at the big picture and see the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council as a symptom and representative of that exhausting, debilitating and wretched disease called Paternalist-Colonialist-Dominator Culture — an illness that has no place in the world, and no place in the worldwide community and tradition of Ayahuasca.

It has no place here, because this kind of sickness is one of the most significant things we are healing, overgrowing, casting away and transforming with the help Ayahuasca, and many other plant medicines.

Synchronistically, while I was reading ESC related material and discussing the situation online some of those who have signed the Statement of Criticism, there was a little knock at my front door.

I live on a fairly remote acreage and we rarely have unexpected visitors, especially in the winter when the mile-long driveway is often impassable without a 4×4 due to 3′ high snow drifts. We’re really tucked away. But somehow creationists of some denomination found us. How I don’t know, but I opened the door and they stepped forward, smiled shimmering white teeth, looked unsettlingly like Joshua Wickerham, offered copies of “The Watchtower”, explained quickly (but firmly) that evolution was not the real story and, as a sort of rapid-fire grand finale, they promised me that God would soon bring a government free of corruption.

Well, in that surreal swirl, and even now, I can’t help but see the ESC as akin to The Watchtower, its vision and core as made-up, misguided and damaging as Creationist theory, its promises as outrageous as God bringing to Earth some kind of uncorrupt utopian government. Which looks great on paper, but not very likely to happen in reality.

Chris Kilham articulates way beyond this “surface level” cosmic giggle and experiential metaphor, as expressed in his letter to the ESC and Joshua Wickerham

“When I resigned from my (very brief) tenure at ESC, it was out of utter disbelief with how wrong-headed, fatuous, and fundamentally corrupt the ESC idea really is. The one thing that is good about it is the name. The name suggests credibility, high values, and a mission worth supporting. None of this is true in the actuality. And unlike the other signees, I do wish to say without anger or hostility that I disagree with the opinion that you, Joshua, are coming from a good place. Having spoken with you regarding this, having read and re-read the core materials, and having spent time with you, I am convinced that ESC is a personal power grab on your part, and that it is fundamentally demeaning to the ayahuasca tradition, insulting to indigenous native people, and merely an attempt on your part to gain high position in a scene that you rightly perceive as burgeoning.

There is no “modifying,” “adjusting,” “tweaking,” or otherwise fiddling around with something so blatantly misguided as ESC. In my estimation, it must be dismantled and forgotten.”

Dismantled, yes.

But perhaps we should not forget.

Perhaps it is beneficial to remember and keep this in mind and heart for at least a little while, so that we, as the human family, can actually learn from our mistakes, grow healthier, be beautifully humble, speak and listen to each other, even as we may all be lost in translation, so we can move beyond this surface tension we are trapped in and make the world more wonderful.

And, concerning Ayahuasca specifically we should always remember that it is Banisteriopsis caapi, not Banisteriopsis caapitalism, and that Ayahuasca is so very, very effective at addressing, healing and purging the Colon–ialist diseases that have held humanity down for far too long.

A group of more then 60 academicsand other experts publicly launched a statement in rejection of the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council’s (ESC) methods and goals. The ESC has currently raised over $90,000 in a campaign to introduce ayahuasca use to a market-driven “certification” system based on discourses of “safety” and “sustainability”.

We believe that rather than ensuring the sustainability of ayahuasca and the safety of those who use it, the ESC approach is actually damaging ayahuasca sustainability and practices, and that something urgently needs to be done about this.

The Statement outlines the following reasons:

Alarmist campaign tactics;

Unsupported claims that lack of safety, breakdown of traditional means of control, and lack of regulations might cause governments in South America to forbid the use of ayahuasca;

Lack of indigenous representation and insufficient assessment of impact of their work on Amazonian indigenous communities;

Unrealistic and inappropriate goals to “clean up sorcery”, and certify ayahuasca retreat centers;

A market orientation, commercial language and promotion of ayahuasca tourism;

Unsubstantiated claims calling for conservation and protection of ayahuasca plants and admixtures in order to avoid their disappearance;

Overall lack of scientific evidence and rigor and problematic representation of expertise in the field;

Lack of transparency about financial benefits and processes;

Misappropriation of the voice of ayahuasca.

We urge the ESC Board and staff to re-direct their sweeping goals with respect to the stewardship of ayahuasca and turn their skills towards educating foreigners who are interested in the ayahuasca experience.

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The main purpose of the ESC is to engage in dialogue toward consensus on responsible plant use.
We are doing this work because interest in sacred plants is growing fast, which puts pressure on
traditional safety and sustainability approaches. Though most people seem to be benefitting greatly,
some people are getting hurt.

The ESC works at points of cultural contact and tension—where global meets local, where ancient meets modern, and sacred meets commercial. We work to minimize the bad, maximize the good, and avoid unintended consequences. We do this through open, honest dialogue giving everyone a voice.

As a young organization, after 15 months of scoping and feedback on the Ayahuasca Dialogues, I want to share some thoughts on who we are, who we are not, and where we want to grow with you.

Dialogues Report: English (Spanish version coming soon, under review);

Fundraising from multiple sources. We have raised ~USD $58,000. ESC co-founders have donated ~$15,000 more. In-kind donations far outnumber monetary donations. We have spent ~75% of the money raised, ~39% on research & engagement; ~39% on communications & development; ~13% on education of seekers; ~9% on administration. Our first fiscal year financial report will be released by March following board approval;

We are not:

Imposing an agenda. Consensus is voluntary. (We define consensus as the lack of sustained opposition from any stakeholder group.);

Representing others. People represent themselves. We do seek community leaders’ supervision of ESC work through our Stakeholder Representative Council. We seek your nominations;

Certifying shamans or their healing abilities

Suggesting that ayahuasca admixture plants are “endangered”. We hope the #ProtectAya campaign helped bring attention to the need to protect and better understand these plants;

Trying to “sanitize” ayahuasca culture. We want people to be safer;

Being alarmist. Ayahuasca faces profound threats. We have different and complementary approaches to deal with these threats;

Suggesting that South American ayahuasca policies should be changed. We maintain that South American policies are post-prohibitionist models for other governments to follow, but that the global ayahuasca drinking community can do more to address safety and sustainability issues.

Increasing the open-endedness of the Ayahuasca Dialogues, including extending the timeline for reaching consensus on the Ayahuasca Agreement;

Critiquing “seals of approval” or any other activities that could reduce or be seen to reduce personal responsibility or increase unwanted commercialization of traditional cultures;

Engaging during these coming months in more thorough analysis of possible consequences of ESC work and other activities related to recognizing responsible ayahuasca use.

Continuing to deepen and extend personal and professional relationships at all levels of the organization, especially amongst academics, Amazonian communities, ayahuasca centers, ayahuasca churches, and with indigenous and other traditional knowledge holders.

Our most important question remains: How can we best serve those who work with and seek ayahuasca?

We remain open to all suggestions and welcome your feedback.

We want to work with you and look forward to continued engagement and sustainable growth together!
More questions? Read our FAQ. Or contact us.
Sincerely, on behalf of everyone at the ESC,
Joshua Wickerham
ESC Co-Founder and Executive Director

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The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) agreed to serve as non-profit fiscal sponsor for the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council (ESC) because we recognize the need for a community-oriented approach to encouraging the safe and sustainable uses of ayahuasca. MAPS recognizes that members of the global ayahuasca community have released a statement critiquing ESC’s methods and aims, and that ESC has issued a public response.

MAPS provides fiscal sponsorships to organizations whose work supports our mission to allow gifts to those organizations to be tax-deductible for U.S. citizens. As ESC’s non-profit fiscal sponsor, MAPS passes any funds donated to MAPS along to ESC minus a 5% administrative processing fee (2.5% for donations above $10,000). To date, MAPS has passed on $37,951 in donations to ESC.

As ESC’s fiscal sponsor, MAPS is committed to ensuring that the financial contributions we process on behalf of ESC are used solely for ESC’s stated projects, and has the right to revoke any funding processed by MAPS that is not used for those purposes. Other organizations for which we presently serve as non-profit fiscal sponsor include the Ayahuasca Foundation; Bluelight; the Global Ibogaine Therapist Alliance (GITA); and the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research, and Service (ICEERS).

MAPS plans to continue our fiscal sponsorship of ESC, as we believe that ESC still has the potential to facilitate dialogues leading to the safer and more sustainable uses of ayahuasca. This will require more proactive engagement on the part of ESC with the community’s concerns as well as concrete changes to its approach.

We have encouraged ESC to:

Respond to and make substantive changes based on the community’s critiques, and to publicly address each critique

Improve their financial reporting and transparency

Reorient their approach away from community development or revitalization projects with indigenous or other Amazonian groups

Refocus their projects on becoming a resource for North American and European travelers seeking to use ayahuasca in countries where it is legal

We will continue working closely with the global ayahuasca community to facilitate dialogue and help ESC develop projects that are acceptable and beneficial to the broader community. It is only by working with allies and being genuinely responsive to critique that organizations grow and thrive.

We encourage all potential funders of ESC, MAPS, or any other organization to carefully evaluate the mission, vision, values, and reputation of those organizations before choosing to support them.

MAPS is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research and educational organization that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana. Since our founding in 1986, MAPS has disbursed over $20 million for psychedelic therapy and medical marijuana research and education, all donated by individuals and family foundations.

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Chris Kilham’s response to the ESC and Joshua Wickerham

2014-12-14

Hi Joshua

When I resigned from my (very brief) tenure at ESC, it was out of utter disbelief with how wrong-headed, fatuous, and fundamentally corrupt the ESC idea really is. The one thing that is good about it is the name. The name suggests credibility, high values, and a mission worth supporting. None of this is true in the actuality. And unlike the other signees, I do wish to say without anger or hostility that I disagree with the opinion that you, Joshua, are coming from a good place. Having spoken with you regarding this, having read and re-read the core materials, and having spent time with you, I am convinced that ESC is a personal power grab on your part, and that it is fundamentally demeaning to the ayahuasca tradition, insulting to indigenous native people, and merely an attempt on your part to gain high position in a scene that you rightly perceive as burgeoning.

There is no “modifying,” “adjusting,” “tweaking,” or otherwise fiddling around with something so blatantly misguided as ESC. In my estimation, it must be dismantled and forgotten.

One of my big tip-offs was when I said in an ESC meeting that I have personally (as an ethnobotanist with 43 years in the herbal scene, 23 years working with South American shamans, and 8 years of drinking ayahuasca) have seen a lot of caapi being grown in native villages. You, Joshua, said that you didn’t know that to be so, and thus ESC would need funds, personnel and a survey to find out. The emphasis was all on scrambling to build an organization, not to share truths.

So here’s my personal bottom line. I get loads of high-profile media all the time (ABC, NBC, CNN, NY Times, WSJ, FOX hundreds of other outlets), and I currently am getting gobs of high-profile media on ayahuasca due to the publication of my book The Ayahuasca Test Pilots Handbook, The Essential Guide To Ayahuasca Journeying. The enclosed piece from Business Insider below is just one of many. http://www.businessinsider.com/hallucinogenic-amazonian-bre…

All the media I am currently getting enables me to address issues that potentially harm the ayahuasca community, and ESC is one of those issues. So here is a fair heads-up. I am going to directly, explicitly take this issue on, and highlight ESC as a wrong-headed, fundamentally corrupt idea that can cause lasting damage to us all. In every media opportunity I have, including interviews, seminars, and more, I will take the opportunity to speak out against this, as I consider ESC a demeaning outrage. My first venue for this will be a Reality Sandwich webinar tomorrow evening, Monday December 15th. I am sharpening my verbal machete right now. Dozens more pieces of media are currently being lined up.

Joshua, I believe that you could save everybody a lot of grief by accepting that ESC is a bad idea, and that many good, talented, highly experienced and thoughtful influential people in the ayahuasca scene do not want it. But I suspect that you will disregard this, and barge forward in any case, assured of success. That is unfortunate, because your actions take energy away from worthy activities that could be of real benefit.

If ayahuasca is anything, it is an agent for change. We must change from the “We privileged, out-of-touch white guys need to tell the natives how to act” model, to something worthy and dignified. This is basically the same tired old crap that many of us fight every single day. And while I assure you all that I will unfailingly represent ayahuasca and ayahuasca shamanism in the most respectful, dignified and truthful way, I am utterly opposed to ESC, and will diligently work toward its demise. Just so you know…

Hi Joshua -
If at any time you wish to talk about all of this, I’m happy to do so. I held off speaking out until others did, which I was sure would take place. It happened pretty much on schedule, as people have become aware of the sheer mania of the ESC program.

The staggering arrogance of imagining that you/ESC even have the right to think about certifying, rating or otherwise being the arbiters of good shamanic practices shows grandiose disrespect and delusion. Neither the traditional shamans, nor the ayahuasca centers, nor those who drink, need the goods you are trying to push. With absolutely no background in ayahuasca, no years of working with shamans, and what appears to be messianic blindness, you are not doing the scene any good. It’s too bad too, because you obviously are talented in certain ways, and you do possess the gift of gab.

If anything can taint and damage the ayahuasca community, it is the alarmist, out-of-touch-with-reality activities of ESC. There is no small misunderstanding here. ESC is very much like a rotten piece of fruit. Running a bit of water on it will not make it palatable.

As many of you are well aware, not everyone who drinks ayahuasca has visions that are balanced. There are many examples of first-time drinkers who, having caught a glimpse of non-ordinary reality, feel “selected” by destiny to cover themselves with ayahuasca tattoos, build a pyramid (Julian Haynes), or otherwise rise to messianic prominence to be the saviour of the ayahuasca scene. Thus is sadly the case with Joshua, who after a first ceremony felt chosen by La Medicina to defend, protect, and be the torch-bearer of ayahuasca into the future.

You simply cannot reason with messianic delusion. This is a pitiable situation, certainly, and one that requires the rest of us to proceed in as many thoughtful ways as possible to send ESC into ignominy. Steady, consistent, well informed opposition in all circumstances, at every conference, in all communications and following any perceived gains made by the mis-named ESC seems to be the only sure path to eliminating this nuisance.

This may be a sad waste of time, but this is the situation we face. Reasoning with Joshua will sadly yield nothing. Like the pyramid built by Mr Haynes, which eventually broke up into millions of pieces into the Rio Itaya, ESC will also at some point crack into a fragments and float away, with our help. Unfortunately, the ayahuasca scene at large must be protected from the pernicious delusion of ESC. It is indeed unfortunate.

As an individual, an indigenous rights activist, an Ayahuasca researcher with several years experience in the Amazon, and a late signer of the critique letter, I have these observations.

Your priority is tourists and global consumers first, retreat operators second, while local people and indigenous traditional users are barely a distant afterthought.

The “problems” you use to scare up funds are mostly fabrications. Ayahuasca is not in danger. As far as “sustainability,” all the “wild” Ayahuasca found in the forest was originally planted by human hands and it is not complicated to keep planting efforts going. That is already happening as it needs to. And the notion that Amazonian countries are struggling to figure out how to regulate Ayahuasca, and might decide to regulate it in ways we don’t like if “we” don’t do it first, is just, to put it crudely, pulled out of your butt.

No one in the Amazon has asked for your help in regulating them. Your effort is a top-down initiative being imposed from above. The “problems” you address are defined solely from a western consumerist and capitalist point of view.

Have you considered just exactly who makes up the sector that is actively opposing your efforts? It is anthropologists, ethnobotanists, NGO workers, indigenous rights activists, and others who have experience “on the ground” in the Amazon.

The globalized world has met the Amazonian Ayahuasca world, and is wreaking profound changes upon it. What question should we be asking?

Should it be:

a) How can the impact of the globalization of Ayahuasca culture on the Amazonian peoples best be mitigated?

Or should it be:

b) How can we regulate the Ayahuasca “industry” so it can best serve global consumers?

Your initiative is 100% oriented to the second question — to subordinating Ayahuasca cultures to global consumerism and enfolding the Ayahuasca world into the global capitalist world.

For your “dialogues,” you set up the playing field, and the framework of assumptions. Local people and indigenous peoples are only an afterthought, and their voices will not be heard if they don’t fit into your priorities.

You have already demonstrated your deafness to anyone who does not speak within your framework of assumptions. If you cannot hear the well-articulated concerns of a group of educated academics, what faith should anyone have that your “dialogues” will hear the voice of poor and uneducated local people and indigenous people? Especially since from the outset their point of view has not even been considered?

Your arrogant idea that outsiders with no knowledge of the region and no concern for the local people’s point of view or priorities should be able to impose regulations, regulations designed to integrate the Ayahuasca world into the global capitalist system and subordinate it to the western consumerism, is neo-colonialism.

This is why you are so strongly opposed by people with actual experience on the ground in the Amazonian Ayahuasca world.

You probably will fail to hear this as you have failed to hear others, but at least this might help clarify exactly who is opposing and why.

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Global capitalism is already destroying the Amazon. Oil companies and other multinationals are destroying the forests and poisoning the rivers. And the more that people lose their independence and become dependent on money and the global capitalist system in order to survive, the less they can resist the forces of destruction. Global capitalism is intrinsically unsustainable because it requires perpetual expansion (growth) in order to survive. It is founded upon imbalance, not on balance.

The ESC member did not say “They should be able to make a living.” He said “They should be able to make a profit.” As though the virtue of promoting profit economy in the Amazon is not even something to question. As though there is no difference between making a living and making a profit.

Dear members of ayahuasca drinking communities, experts, and fellow seekers:

Because the ESC is a community-based initiative, we want to take seriously all input from those involved in ayahuasca practices and who are concerned about its future.

Due to recent critiques by experts who have expressed their serious concerns about the fundamentals of the ESC and its approach, we have decided to put the Ayahuasca Dialogues on hold to go back to basics and engage in an open conversation with everyone who wants to share feedback and critique the ESC’s approach and vision. We want to be 100% sure that the ESC constructively serves the future of ayahuasca in the globalized world and is not the cause of unintended consequences. Therefore, it is important to take the necessary time for reflection, analysis, and revision. We will continue to seek relevant experts’ guidance at every stage of our work.

]]>http://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/responses-to-the-statement-critiquing-the-ethnobotanical-stewardship-council/feed/5Statement Critiquing the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council (ESC)http://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/statement-critiquing-the-ethnobotanical-stewardship-council-esc/
http://www.ayahuasca.com/amazon/statement-critiquing-the-ethnobotanical-stewardship-council-esc/#commentsMon, 22 Dec 2014 20:05:22 +0000adminhttp://www.ayahuasca.com/?p=1541A group of academics and others have published a letter expressing severe criticism of the methods and aims of the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council (ESC), an NGO which has assumed the mission of ensuring the safety and sustainability of ayahausca and other entheogens. The letter is reproduced below. The debate continues…

Statement Critiquing the Ethnobotanical Stewardship Council (ESC) (*)

We, the academics and other experts undersigned, manifest publically our rejection of the ESC’s methods and goals. The following statement has been made public after more than one year of “dialogues” and correspondence with the ESC, as we do not feel our concerns have been properly addressed.

The information below is a reflection based on the ESC’s reports and materials available online, in podcasts, in public representations and interviews, and from private letters and emails exchanged between us. All the information is supported by actual quotes from these sources, but these have been mostly deleted for the sake of space. The ESC has currently raised over $90,000 in a campaign to introduce ayahuasca use to a market-driven “certification” system based on discourses of “safety” and “sustainability.” We believe that, rather than ensuring the sustainability of ayahuasca and the safety of those who use it, the ESC approach is actually damaging ayahuasca sustainability and practices, and that something urgently needs to be done about this. Our reasons are as follows:

1. Alarmist campaign tactics.

“Ayahuasca’s reputation, habitat, legal standing, and very healing traditions are all at stake.”

In order to justify the need for a certification process, the ESC promotes a fear-based fundraising campaign, implying that the use of ayahuasca results in a high incidence of accidents, rapes and deaths; that the plants are on the verge of disappearing; and that there is a lack of regulation. Strategies have included using video of a rape victim demanding that something be done alongside an affirmation that the ESC is doing something, and implying that the ESC is involved in scientific research and treatment of people with ayahuasca when it is not. While there are certainly emerging safety issues that require an informed response, the overall scope of concern is greatly exaggerated. Further, the proposed ESC “intervention” is disproportionate to the evidence currently available on any of these issues.

2. Claims that lack of safety, breakdown of traditional means of control, and lack of regulations might cause governments in South America to forbid the use of ayahuasca.

There are no governments in Amazonian South America thinking of forbidding ayahuasca use: the discourse on health and safety is largely a foreign and imported one. Traditionally, ayahuasca is considered an “traditional indigenous medicine” or “a spiritual doctrine” and a legitimate expression of native knowledge or religious freedom. There are many traditional, bottom-up, community-based means of regulation in the Amazon that already exist and function. There are also more formal means of control in some places, such as the regulations in place in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, etc.

3. Lack of indigenous representation.

The ESC claims to include all voices in a “dialogue.” There actually is no indigenous representation at all, and even if there was, the question of who has the right to represent others is extremely problematic, as leadership in the communities in question is a collective process.

There are also no experts involved who have substantial experience with specific indigenous groups, no Amazon-based NGOs or institutions, nor any with close historical ties to any particular community. Furthermore, nothing has been translated into Spanish or Portuguese, let alone any of the indigenous languages of non-English speaking “stakeholders”; the website, the “Ayahuasca Dialogues” report, and the “Health Guide” are all only available in English.

The claims that this project is a “bottom-up” initiative implies that it arises organically from local people acting upon issues important to their endeavors, and in line with their own philosophies. In reality, this is a Western-oriented, top-down initiative, in the mold of naïve development projects that have caused irrevocable damage to traditional and rural communities. An intervention on the scale the ESC plans demands a full impact assessment before anything is done.

The ESC has publicly claimed that it will be “making sure people are not getting witchcraft put on them,” and reveals no understanding of nor cultural sensibility towards the importance of secrecy, sorcery, and invisibility, nor regarding informal, social and traditional means of control. Sorcery is – among other things – a form of local regulation where inequality and jealousy may drive sorcery accusations. The ESC intends to replace the “morally ambiguous” complex of healing/sorcery in Amazonia with market regulations. “Stewarding” ayahuasca, by certifying centers in the same way that producers of forest products are certified, is wholly inappropriate for indigenous shamanism.

Indigenous cosmologies also conceptualize disease and health differently. The ESC project to “modernize” and “sanitize” indigenous uses of ayahuasca threatens to create an unnecessary and Western-imposed bureaucratization and professionalization/institutionalization of traditional medicine. Those centers that do not want to adopt outside interventions and norms would be uncertified vis-á-vis those that do, and this creates a discriminatory trend.

The ESC’s aesthetics and vocabulary derive from a neoliberal market-based framework, employing such terms and concepts as “incentives,” “cost-effective,” “competitiveness,” “willingness to pay,” “value chain,” “stakeholder,” etc. We assert that all ayahuasca practices have operated outside of a Western market-driven approach in the past, and that currently Westerners are not the only ayahuasca participants.

The ESC maintains that all indigenous villages in the Amazon should be given the chance to develop ayahuasca tourism, and that ayahuasca tourism, capitalism, and development are perfectly compatible. Further, it assumes that promoting ayahuasca seekers’ trips to the Amazon will not exacerbate the economic inequalities that already exist in the Amazonian context. We disagree profoundly, and we do not see that the ESC’s neoliberal project is either pertinent or necessary, from the perspective of those natives of the Amazon who will be affected. Such an approach will necessarily damage the organic local contexts and philosophies that have thrived for many centuries outside of Western demands, dominance, and impositions.

6. Alleged conservation and protection of ayahuasca plants and admixtures in order to avoid their disappearance.

The ESC has claimed that ayahuasca plants are in danger of disappearing due to consumption and commerce, and that ESC will ensure their conservation. Neither Banisteriopsis caapi nor Psychotria viridis are placed under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Both are planted throughout Brazil, and in vibrant new ayahuasca scenes in other countries and continents. There are similar initiatives in the Peruvian Amazon, where several botanical gardens collecting diverse species also exist, as well as small yagé and chagropanga planting projects in Colombia, and home gardens in Ecuador.

Also, it is important to remember that there are traditional circuits of plant exchange that outside initiatives could disrupt. In sum, all this involves profound and complex intercultural issues. The major forces responsible for the devastation of the Amazon are the lumber industry, agricultural enterprises, big pharmaceutical companies, and international patterns of material consumption, rather than the individual consumption of or trade in ayahuasca.

Despite the name, the ESC has no expertise in ethnobotany, is not engaged in university research, shows little familiarity with ongoing scientific research in these areas, and has no concrete plans to promote the conservation or biodiversity of ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is unlike other medicinal plant commodities; it is fundamentally embedded into shamanistic healing traditions, which are in turn part of complex ritual and symbolic systems throughout South America.

7. Lack of scientific evidence and rigor.

For example, the ESC has repeatedly announced that 100,000 visit the Amazon per year for ayahuasca, without providing any solid evidence for this claim. This dubious estimate is marshalled to support a fear-based, urgent fund-raising campaign. The “Health Guide” and the “Dialogues Report,” frequently quoted publically as sources of information, are not created by accredited experts, are full of factual inaccuracies, and bring nothing new to the public debate. They are promotional materials, which are used to justify the existence of the ESC.

8. Problematic representation of expertise in the field.

The ESC gives lectures and media interviews around the world as an “expert institution,” but they have not consolidated the expert advice offered, and seem unaware of existing debates; nor has their staff conducted any substantial Lowland South American fieldwork. There is also a clear ignorance of basic anthropological, sociological, and other factors pertinent to the Amazon region. The ESC’s participation in psychedelic conferences and community forums are largely platforms for fundraising.

9. Changing discourse, lack of clear plans, unrealistic goals.

Despite the strong fundraising, media visibility, and rhetoric, the ESC appears confused about its mission, focus, scope, and orientation – what it wants to do and how. The ESC has a chameleon-like nature. Its strategy for “dialogue” is to co-opt and incorporate criticisms, without actually effecting substantial changes. Affirmations made publically have afterwards been denied, such as the claim to be able to protect people from witchcraft; or they are “previous plans, now abandoned,” evidencing their lack of clarity.

The scope of the ESC covers conservation, policy and regulation in Peru and beyond, anti-sorcery measures, promoting development, facilitating ethno-medical tourism and pilgrimage, ensuring safety and fair distribution of foreign income, assessing what went wrong in accidents, implementing grieving mechanisms, preventing sexual abuse, surveying participants, and certifying centers in different cities and villages throughout Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia. They plan to extend the methods and models to iboga and peyote, and possibly to marijuana, kratom, kava, and psilocybin mushrooms. These claims are huge, unrealistic, and deeply problematic.

10. Lack of transparency about financial benefits.

It is not clear what the charges will be for certification or other services, if there will there be voluntary donations from lodges and providers, and how this will be turned into staff wages and funds to run the organization itself. While ESC is a non-profit organization, it still needs wages to operate and projects need to be defined as important and viable so as to justify their infrastructure. There are also no public reports on how public donations have been used thus far.

11. Rhetoric around the idea of “dialogue” and “community.”

The ESC affirms that it is “community-based,” “grew out of community concerns,” is based on “voluntary participation,” and promotes a “dialogue.” This is empty rhetoric, which does not resonate with experts, nor with indigenous local people. ESC remains unresponsive to concerns regarding how the “stamp of approval” will harm the villages and centers that are not interested in replicating their ideas. The ESC’s lack of on-the-ground experience is apparent, the ethnocentricity of the project is alarming, and the assumption that they know better than the locals how to manage ayahuasca is unfounded.

The ESC does not consist of an appropriate number of experts in the field, nor locally-based Amazonian leaders. None of the founding board members live in the Amazon, nor have they any long-term experience in the field. The Executive Director tried ayahuasca for the first time in 2013, and has very little experience with it. Furthermore, the ESC has repeatedly rejected expert advice, describing groups of long-term experts in the field offering sustained opposition as a “vocal minority.” Add to this “vocal minority” the roster of scientists and locally knowledgeable people who have, from the outset, refused to legitimize the ESC’s naïve plan with their support, as well as all of those advisors who left the organization alarmed at what they saw, and one can safely conclude that it is the ESC who is the vocal minority.

12. Misappropriation of the voice of ayahuasca.

The ESC implies that it represents ayahuasca directly, with tweets such as “Now is the time to give back to ayahuasca.” But does it?

Conclusion

The mission, to “transform the lives of people all along the ayahuasca value chain, from the people who drink ayahuasca all the way to the people who cultivate and offer ceremonies” is extremely problematic on many levels. Our lack of support for the ESC does not reflect our unwillingness to discuss facts; rather, it stems from extensive discussion with the ESC, and reflects our concerns that ESC will adversely affect communities in the pursuit of its ill-conceived goals.

The fundamental question remains: What mandate do they have to impose Western, hegemonic, neoliberal norms upon communities in Latin America of which they do not have a detailed understanding?

We urge the staff to direct their skills towards educating foreigners who are interested in ayahuasca, and leave the stewardship of ayahuasca to those with generations of expertise behind them.

Stephen Beckerman; Associate Professor Emeritus, The Pennsylvania State University; Visiting Professor, The University of Utah; specialist in lowland tropical forest peoples of South America, particularly the Bari of Colombia and Venezuela and the Waorani of Ecuador.

Energy Clarity Immunity: The Power of the Amazon

with Morgan Maher

featuring

Dennis McKenna on May 13

and

Richard Doyle on May 6

Happening onTuesdays

May 6, 13, 20

2014

7pm – 9pm MDT

Live, Online, Interactive

$20 per session

Whole Course $55

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This three-part series guides you through Amazonian plants: their uses, benefits, traditions, research, stories and magic.

Powered by the most bio-diverse place on the planet — we’ll branch and connect various healing traditions; exploring the Chinese/Taoist principles of Jing, Qi, Shen in the context of Amazonian shamanism, and ways plants offer holistic visions of health, tremendous rejuvenation and renaissance of body, mind and spirit.

In this course you’ll learn how to integrate these traditions into your every day life through Morgan’s guidance. You’ll learn simple ways to renew and upgrade your daily routine that will boost your immune system and spark your creativity.

From plant medicine elixirs to superfood smoothies to ancient explorations of stillness and nature — this course will awaken heightened levels of clarity and fortitude with which to flow and flourish in the new now.

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Topics include:

Creating and working with Amazonian elixirs, teas and tinctures

Expanding immunity; protection, resiliency, regeneration

Clear thinking and dreaming to promote calm and increase creativity

Casting away anxiety, panic, frustration, stress and shock

Keeping your endurance, initiative, strength and fire flowing

Energy, life force, power – responsibly, respectfully, in right relationship

Session One, on Tuesday May 6, 7pm-9pm MDT, explores:

Immunity

This first session focuses on the ways and means for creating and maintaining defences and protections for your body, mind and spirit. A necessary foundation, as we embark further into the wilderness of these days. Cat’s Claw, or Uña de Gato, will feature prominently alongside Camu Camu.

Featured Guest: Richard Doyle

With Richard we’ll explore the capacity of consciousness to learn from teacher plants to focus attention on the source of self. This shift in the “gradient of attention”, learned under the tutelage of ayahuasca and vegetalista Norma Panduro, worked in Richard’s own life to help heal him of life long and life threatening asthma and debilitating whole body eczema.

Professor Richard Doyle, aka “mobius”, composes and teaches in the esoteric traditions of rhetoric, science fiction and emerging technoscience–sustainability, space colonization, biotechnology, nanotechnology, psychedelic science, information technologies, biometrics–and the cultural and literary contexts from which they sprout. He earned a PhD at UC Berkeley and a post doctoral fellowship at MIT, he has received grants from the National Science Foundation, and is a Fellow at the Hybrid Reality Institute and a Distinguished International Fellow of the London Graduate School.

He has written a trilogy of scholarly books on the effects of information technologies on human evolution and the effects of language on consciousness. His latest book, Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants & The Evolution of the Noösphere, focuses on the co-evolution of humans with plants.

Session Two, on Tuesday May 13, 7pm-9pm MDT

with Special Guest: Dennis McKenna

From the beginning of time, plants have played a role in human affairs, influencing the evolution of civilizations and cultures, human migration, medicine and health care, wars, art, mythology and religion.

In this very special session, Dennis and Morgan will discuss and explore:

The role and importance of botanical medicines in the public health programs, ethnomedicine, and medical practices of developing countries and indigenous cultures.

The historical and political roles that plant migrations, trade in food and spices, exploration, and the exploitation of botanical resources have played in the development of civilizations, colonization, cultural traditions, and imperialism.

Issues, perspectives, and dilemmas related to the ownership of indigenous knowledge, biopiracy, and genetic resources.

Humanity’s well being, and the importance of preserving biodiversity, species habitats, and genetic diversity.

Dennis McKenna is an ethnopharmacologist, research pharmacognosist, lecturer and author. He is the brother of well-known psychedelics proponent Terence McKenna and is a founding board member and the director of ethnopharmacology at the Heffter Research Institute.

McKenna received his Master’s degree in botany at the University of Hawaii in 1979. He received his Doctorate in Botanical Sciences in 1984 from the University of British Columbia. McKenna then received post-doctoral research fellowships in the Laboratory of Clinical Pharmacology, National Institute of Mental Health, and in the Department of Neurology, Stanford University School of Medicine.

McKenna’s research led to the development of natural products for Aveda Corporation as well as greater awareness of natural products and medicines. He has authored numerous scientific articles and books. He co-authored The Invisible Landscape with his brother Terence and Botanical Medicines: the Desk Reference for Major Herbal Supplements with Kenneth Jones and Kerry Hughes. McKenna spent a number of years as a senior lecturer for the Center for Spirituality and Healing, part of the Academic Health Center at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is now a senior research scientist for the Natural Health Products Research Group at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in the Vancouver area.

His research has included the pharmacology, botany, and chemistry of ayahuasca and oo-koo-hé, the subjects of his master’s thesis. He has also conducted extensive fieldwork in the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brazilian Amazon.

Participants receive

Reviews

“Morgan’s class was very informative in teaching not only about the plants but importantly how to prepare them and incorporate their use in our daily lives. I appreciate Morgan sharing his wide and intimate knowledge, including the more esoteric aspects of the Amazon plant life.” – Martha, participant in Energy Clarity Immunity: The Power of the Amazon, at the Light Cellar, March 2014

About Morgan

Morgan is on the Board of Directors for Ayahuasca.com, he has written for Reality Sandwich, hosted Evolver Intensives, illustrated Peter Gorman’s book; Ayahuasca in My Blood, published Espiritu: a book of plants.

He lives near Big Hill Springs in Rocky View, Alberta, and energizes art, design, web and media with the Light Cellar, in Calgary.

About SynchCast

SynchCast is home to original, interactive, WebShow programming featuring both established and emerging thinkers and activists. SynchCast looks to disseminate knowledge and encourage cross-cultural communication using this global medium.

Technical Details and Requirements

Each session is 120 minutes long, with an hour and a half of presentation and 30 minutes of Q&A in which you will have the chance to ask your questions directly to Morgan.

Participants who have a webcam and microphone will be able to ask questions via live video. If you donít have a webcam or a microphone you can still participate and ask questions via the chat.

All participants will have access to a recording of the workshop that they can download and watch whenever and as often as they would like.

Requirements: Broadband/high-speed internet connection, web browser, desktop or notebook computer. iPhones and iPads NOT supported as of this time.

Uña de Gato, Powerful Plant

By Morgan Maher

Uña de Gato, Uncaria tomentosa, or Cat’s Claw is among the most amazing and powerful plants on this planet. Since I first encountered this jungle vine several years ago, it has remained by my side as one of my most trusted and respected guides on the path of health, clarity, energy and immunity. Known also as the Opener of the Way — Cat’s Claw is Jaguar, Panther, Puma, Cougar. It’s one of the Big Cats. King of the Jungle. Uña de Gato is a force.

Further, Uña de Gato is graceful – it prowls, leaps, and moves through the branches of one’s body with ethereal ease and dexterity. It stalks, hunts and pounces on illness and dis-ease as though such things were helpless, unfortunate rodents — devouring, transforming and eliminating them. Amongst plants, Uña de Gato is an assassin, an angel, and simply one of the best spirits one could endeavour to befriend.

Cat’s Claw is well known for it’s beneficial effects upon the whole of the human body and spirit, capable of powerfully cleansing, healing, strengthening and tonifying numerous functions of the human body. It is exceptionally beneficial for the digestive system, especially the stomach and intestines.

Hippocrates — considered the father of modern medicine — stated; “All disease begins in the gut.” Cat’s Claw is supremely adept at hunting down and healing gastrointestinal imbalance and discord. In its cat-like manner it pounces, powerfully, effortlessly, it has you and rips through — wastes no time and gets to work; clawing, cleaning, clearing, repairing. As the plant cleanses these systems on a physical level, it strengthens on a spiritual level one’s intuition, enhances one’s “gut feeling” — offering clarity to one’s life and path.

Hence; “the opener of the way”, a name given to the plant by Dr. Brent W Davis, for its ability to cleanse the entire intestinal tract. Further, this perspective is also connected to the plant’s reputation as “bodyguard”. Cat’s Claw “opens the way” because it strengthens the immune system so well, protects to such a degree, it seems nothing harmful gets near you.

Related to Cat’s Claw’s ability to cleanse the intestines — the gut; “where all disease begins” — it’s immunity boosting capabilities are linked to its powerful anti-inflammatory actions. Again, and from another perspective — that of Chinese herbalism — we see Uña de Gato acting on “the precursor of all disease”; inflammation.

The classical signs of acute inflammation are pain, heat, redness, swelling, and loss of function. Cat’s Claw is excellent at eliminating these things, opening blockages and promoting flow, form and function. It is well regarded traditionally and clinically for treating inflammatory conditions like arthritis, bursitis and rheumatism. In healthier situations where these conditions are not present, Cat’s Claw, in my experience, works very well in keeping the muscoskeletal system –bones, muscles, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, joints, connective tissue — supple, strong, active and ready.

By various names; paraguayo, samento, toroñ, tambor huasca, uña huasca, uña de gavilan, this plant has seen traditional use primarily in Peru, by the Asháninka, Cashibo, Conibo and Shipibo.

“The use of Uncaria tomentosa by indigenous healers of tropical South America has not been traced to any particular time in history, but extends for untold past generations as part of of an oral tradition of healing.”

Uncaria tomentosa is extremely well documented, and has in a sense reinforced its own immunity with the benefits of nearly half a century of ongoing scientific research published in peer-reviewed journals. Early encounters between Klaus Keplinger, (a pioneer in the study and promotion of cat’s claw) and an Asháninkan shaman in 1959, led to the revealing and unravelling of novel oxindole alkaloids, in the early 1970s. In 2011 researchers described oxindoles as “Legendary magic bullets in Bio-medicinal Chemistry”.

Oxindoles exhibit an extensive range of biological effects which include the antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial, antiproliferative, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive and the anticonvulsant activities.

“Studies published from the late 1970s to early 1990s indicated that the whole oxindole alkaloid fraction, whole vine bark and/or root bark extracts, or six individually-tested oxindole alkaloids, when used in relatively small amounts, increased immune function by up to 50%. These study results were substantiated by Canadian researchers at the University of Ottawa (1999) and by Peruvian researchers (1998), both working with whole vine extract.”

“The highest order of Asháninka shaman priests use the root bark of U. tomentosa-PC, known to them as savéntaro or powerful plant, to remove the main cause of disease in the Ashaninka’s medico-religious system of healing; a disturbance between the spirit and the body, or an “anxiety.”

Accordingly, U. Tomentosa-PC is used by Asháninka shamans in the treatment of psychological disorders, and is regarded as being inhabited by “good spirits”. It is placed among plants they use for religious purposes which include Banisteriopsis caapi and Erythroxylum coca. The “good spirits” of the vine are said to remove the anxiety state interfering with sprit-body communication, thereby restoring health.”

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Personally and experientially I have long felt that the Uña de Gato vine bestows similar benefits to the human body as the Ayahuasca vine. In other words — and speaking non-specifically as U. tomentosa andB. Caapi are botanically and chemically different — Cat’s Claw does for the body what Ayahuasca does for the body.

As of this writing I’ve worked with Ayahuasca for nearly 10 years. The first nine months of which were dedicated to working exclusively with the Ayahuasca vine alone — without addition of add-mixture plants like Chacruna (Psychotria viridis) or Chaliponga (Diplopterys cabrerana). It was in this time-frame, this dieta, that I came to know and directly experience the expedience with which Ayahuasca can restore physical health. It is comprehensive and astounding in this capacity.

This experience and work with Ayahuasca formed points of reference for my work and relationship with Cat’s Claw. As I began (and continued) to drink it, I observed similar effects, which, over time were fortified, expanded and enhanced. Cat’s Claw is not psychoactive or visionary in the way Ayahuasca is — it simply makes one feel good, clear, sturdy, and at ease.

Cat’s Claw, like Ayahuasca, encourages greater and greater degrees of physical and spiritual strength, balance and harmony. However, unlike Ayahuasca, which is neither advised, encouraged, necessary or desirable to consume on a regular basis, Uña de Gato is. Readily available, one can purchase sustainably harvested, fairly traded Cat’s Claw vine, brew it at home, drink it respectfully — without necessarily engaging ceremony or ritual — and go about one’s days with cat-like prowess and power.

Coming up in May, 2014 –

This three-part series guides you through Amazonian plants: their uses, benefits, traditions, research, stories and magic.

Powered by the most bio-diverse place on the planet — we’ll branch and connect various healing traditions; exploring the Chinese/Taoist principles of Jing, Qi, Shen in the context of Amazonian shamanism, and the ways plants offer holistic visions of health, tremendous rejuvenation and renaissance of body, mind and spirit.

]]>http://www.ayahuasca.com/spirit/una-de-gato-powerful-plant/feed/2Chanting Down Babylon by Daniel Mirantehttp://www.ayahuasca.com/creativity/chanting-down-babylon-by-daniel-mirante/
http://www.ayahuasca.com/creativity/chanting-down-babylon-by-daniel-mirante/#commentsSun, 30 Mar 2014 15:23:44 +0000adminhttp://www.ayahuasca.com/?p=1473Daniel Mirante is a painter, teacher and writer based in the United Kingdom. As well as exhibiting and speaking internationally, he is a member of the founding faculty of the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art (www.academyofvisionaryart.com) and of the UK based Art Pilgrim project (www.artpilgrim.org).

His interest in visionary and sacred art is influenced by intensive ceremonial work within indigenous cultures and mystical lineages. Chanting Down Babylon is his latest work, and the video shares some words around the meaning and symbolism of the piece.